The High Weald AONB Partnership is delighted to announce that the Sussex Lund grant programme has awarded £210,000 for landscape restoration and nature recovery projects during 2020.

The funding will support 50 small-scale, practical projects designed to improve the ecology and landscape of the High Weald. Recipients range from community groups, parish councils and schools to farming cooperatives, charities and landowners.

Sussex Lund is a collaboration between the High Weald AONB Partnership and Lund Trust, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. The scheme offers grants of between £500 and £10,000 for projects in and around the High Weald (covering parts of Sussex, Kent and Surrey) that improve habitats, wildlife and scenic beauty.

The projects include:

Restoring hazel coppice for dormice and creating glades and rides in woodland

Replacing and installing new barn owl nesting boxes across a 10km stretch of farmland

Planting fruit trees and managing orchards in a nature-friendly way

Creating wildflower-rich grassland to boost the number and diversity of pollinators

Restoring and creating ponds and other wetland habitats

Creating new woodland to provide habitat for a farm’s breeding nightingale population

Potential applicants for Sussex Lund 2021 should contact the High Weald team straightaway for an informal chat and to book a socially-distanced site visit by calling: 01424 723011. For more information on Sussex Lund and the application criteria, see: www.highweald.org/look-after/sussex-lund.html